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101Reading Journal ….. (Menik Winiharti; dkk)

READING JOURNAL AS A WAY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ COMPREHENSION TOWARD A TEXTBOOK READING MATERIAL

Menik Winiharti; Agnes Herawati; Esti Rahayu

English Department, Faculty of Humanities, Bina Nusantara UniversityJln. Kemanggisan Ilir III, No. 45, Kemanggisan – Palmerah, Jakarta Barat 11480

[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

ABSTRACT

Reading journal is one way to record students’ independent learning based on text they read. This study was conducted to find out the students’ level of reading comprehension through some notes written in the reading journal, the extent to which the activity of writing reading journals improved students’ reading comprehension, whether the students got benefit from reading journal. There were 104 respondents coming from four different departments in Bina Nusantara University were asked to read a text related to the subject they learned in a certain session. Then they were assigned to write a journal that records the things they had read. When this task was finished, the lecturer ran a quiz containing related questions to check whether they really understood the content of the text. Afterwards, students were to fill in a questionnaire regarding their opinion on the impact of the reading journal toward their reading comprehension. The findings indicate that more than half of the participants appear to understand the material well, and the task plays a certain role in improving students’ understanding. The most crucial thing is that most students think they get benefit by writing the reading journal.

Keywords: reading journal, writing, reading comprehension

ABSTRAK

Reading journal merupakan salah satu cara untuk merekam pembelajaran mandiri mahasiswa berdasarkan teks yang mereka baca. Artikel menjelaskan manfaat jurnal membaca, yaitu untuk mengetahui tingkat pemahaman mahasiswa terhadap teks bacaan yang ditulis pada reading journal, menemukan sejauh mana aktivitas menulis reading journal mampu meningkatkan pemahaman mahasiswa terhadap bahan bacaan, dan untuk mengetahui apakah mahasiswa mendapatkan manfaat dengan menulis reading journal. Responden sebanyak 104 mahasiswa berasal dari empat jurusan berbeda di Universitas Bina Nusantara diminta untuk membaca teks yang berhubungan dengan ilmu yang mereka pelajari di sesi tertentu. Kemudian mereka ditugasi untuk menulis sebuah jurnal dengan mencatat hal-hal yang mereka telah baca. Saat tugas diselesaikan, dosen mengadakan kuis untuk memeriksa apakah mereka benar-benar memahami isi teks. Setelah itu, mahasiswa mengisi kuesioner terkait dengan pendapat mereka tentang dampak reading journal terhadap pemahaman bacaan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa lebih dari setengah responden memahami materi dengan baik, dan tugas penulisan reading journal ini cukup berperan dalam meningkatkan pemahaman mahasiswa. Hal yang paling penting adalah sebagian besar mahasiswa berpikir bahwa mereka mendapatkan manfaat dengan menulis reading journal.

Kata kunci: jurnal membaca, menulis, pemahaman bacaan

102 Jurnal LINGUA CULTURA Vol.8 No.2 November 2014

INTRODUCTIONTextbook reading comprehension is critical in

the individual educational successes. Without adequate textbook reading comprehension, students may struggle in many subject areas. Subjects, other than reading comprehension, where comprehension is significantly important, include science, social studies, programming, and many more. In the area of science, culture, and social studies, research indicates that many students lack of prior knowledge and reading strategies to generate inferences; thus, the students comprehend the textbook poorly. It is also found that students lack of specific reading strategies to generate inferences that aid in the understanding of texts. (McNamara, 2004)

In relation to university students’ ability in comprehending the content of a textbook, educators need to provide instructions as well as tools to improve their students’ comprehension ability, since the research indicates that reading comprehension plays an important role in increasing academic achievement and in gaining problem solving ability as well. Talking about tools that are used in gaining students’ textbook reading comprehension ability, research shows that some various tools can be applied, such as reading and vocabulary inventory, qualitative reading inventory and reading journal.

Reading journal itself is one method that lecturers can use to improve students’ textbook reading comprehension ability. The use of reading journals may bring students’ academic attainment to meet the standard competencies, and students will ultimately perform better in their academic work where reading plays a primary role. This study tries to explore the effects of reading journals toward the comprehension of a textbook material.

Journal writing/learning logs/reading response logs is a process that allows learners to move between low and high levels of reasoning (Murray, 1990). Journal writing belongs to writing for learning which internalizes the information that the students are trying to learn and allow the students to become active participants in their own. Furthermore, journal writing is one way to promote metacognitive development, making the students aware of what they do not know (Rowan, 1990).Vacca and Vacca (1999) stated when teachers integrate writing and reading, they help students use writing to think about what they will read and to understand what they have read. McIntosh and Draper (2001) added that learning logs take neither a great deal of time nor much class time, but they have tremendous value for teachers and students. In relation to the reading activity, composing a journal is a very motivational instrument when utilized as a part of the activity that it makes a student read with a reason subsequently focusing on a deeper level of perception.

Reading journal is designed to aid students with critical reading skills. It means active and skillful conceptualizing, applying, synthesizing and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experiences, reflection, reasoning or communication as a guide to belief and action (Scriven & Paul, 1996). They allow the students to admit confusion, to ask questions, to make connections and to read with attention (Wilson, 1989). The journal gives students a place to record their thoughts,

feelings and reactions to the text they are reading. Students use the reading journal to record questions about the text as well as responses to it. When there is a purpose for reading, the students become more critical, thus improving their textbook reading comprehension (Wilson, 1989). As students read to eliminate their confusion and develop their comprehension, they begin to make connections between passages of the text and their own experiences. Bean (1996) encourages creating reading logs to make students interact with texts. He mentioned that students can summarize the text, connect it to personal experience, argue with it, and evaluate it. Writing a reading journal make students to grope, wrestle with confusion on their own and they often make surprising discoveries (Wilson, 1989). Furthermore, Wilson (1989) stated that reading journal allows students to pause and mull and ponder, then it slows them down and encourages them to pay attention to the slow unfolding of a work of a textbook. It creates readers.

METHOD

The participants of this research are 104 students from four departments in Bina Nusantara University. They are 30 students of Information System Department, 30 students of Information Technology Department, 11 students of English Department, 33 students of Japanese Department. There are three instruments used in the research: reading journal, quiz, and questionnaire. First, the students are assigned to read a text at home. This text is supposed to be discussed in the classroom in the following week. After reading the text, they are asked to write a journal that reports things they have read.

This reading journal consists of five items: those are title of the text, a short summary of the text, things the students have learned: new vocabularies/terms and knowledge, comments or opinion: Students’ own comment or opinion toward the content of the text, and questions arise: Students might ask questions regarding their understanding toward the content of the text.

To make sure their real understanding, the students have to do a simple quiz related to the text material they read. The result of the quiz supports the result of writing the reading journal, with regard to the improvement of the students’ comprehension toward textbook reading materials.

In addition, after the activity of reading journal is finished and the lecturer has already held a quiz, the students are asked to fill in a questionnaire which is distributed in order to know their opinion toward the activity of writing a reading journal. Several questions regarding students’ understanding and journal’s function are asked. The questions use Indonesian language since the respondents coming from the three departments are not of English Department. In addition, this Indonesian questionnaire is meat to make the respondents easier to answer. Here are the questions:1. Menurut Anda, apakah penulisan “reading journal”

secara keseluruhan bermanfaat untuk menunjang proses pembelajaran?

(Do you think that writing a “reading journal” is generally useful to support the learning process?)


2. Dengan mengerjakan tugas “reading journal” apakah Anda merasa lebih siap menghadapi pertemuan kuliah berikutnya?

(By completing the task of “reading journal”, do you feel better prepared for the next class session?)

3. Apakah seluruh konsep dan istilah yang ada dalam bacaan yang ditugaskan kepada Anda dapat dipahami?

(Can the whole concepts and terms in the assigned reading be understood?)

4. Kalau jawaban atas pertanyaan no.3 di atas adalah “tidak”, apakah Anda menyiapkan pertanyaan yang berkaitan dengan hal itu untuk diajukan kepada dosen pada saat kuliah?

(If the answer to question number 3 is “No”, do you prepare the related questions to be submitted to the lecturer in the class session?)

5. Apakah Anda merasa terbantu dengan adanya tugas penulisan “reading journal”?

(Do you think that the task of writing “reading journal” helps you understand the whole idea of the text?)

Furthermore, after the data have been collected, the analysis is conducted based on the results of the reading journal, the quiz, and the questionnaire.

The reading journal is assessed based on the overall comprehension that the students show in their work. The result is categorized into three: good, fair, and poor. This classification is based on the following rubric, as seen in Table 1.

Table 1 Rubric for Reading Journal

Items assessed Good Fair Poor

Quality of information (related to brief summary)

Information clearly relates to the main topic. It includes several supporting details.

Information clearly relates to the main topic. No details.

Information has little or nothing to do with the main topic.

Opinion Response includes at least 3 relevant, thoughtful opinions which show insight

Response includes 1- 2 relevant opinions

Response includes no relevant opinions

Questions arise Thoughtful, relevant and reflective questions are asked (related to application of the theory/topic)

Obvious questions are asked (not related to the application of the theory/topic)

No questions are asked

Source: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=CustomizeTemplate&bank_rubric_id=8&section_id=5&

Then the result of the journal and that of the quiz

are compared to find whether the students are consistent in both writing the journal and answering the questions in the quiz.

Afterwards, the answers of the questionnaire are analyzed to find how reading journals give impact to the students’ comprehension ability and how far they think that the journal is useful.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThe evaluation of the reading journal is based on the

overall comprehension that the students get after reading a text, which is categorized into three: good, fair, and poor. Afterwards, to ensure whether they really understand the text, their general comprehension written in the journal is compared to the result of the quiz. This quiz result is also categorized into three: good—if the score is above or equals to 80, fair—if the score is ranged from 70 to 79, and poor—if the score is below 70.

Furthermore, to know the students’ opinion toward the journal writing, whether it is useful for them, the result of the questionnaire is also analyzed as seen in Table 2. The table describes the result of the journal shown by the students of Information System as well as their quiz scores.

Table 2 The Result of Reading Journal and Quiz Score in Information System Department

Number of Students

Journal Result Quiz Score

Category

Good Fair Poor Good Fair Poor

Total 22 7 1 Total 13 17 0

73.3% 23.3% 3.3% 43,3% 56,7% 0%

Table 2 indicates that out of 30 students of Information System Department, 22 of them have written their journal quite well, 7 students have done it fairly, and only 1 student has performed poorly. It means that 73,3% of them comprehend the text quite well, 23,3% do it fairly, and only 3,3% does it poorly.

However, the result of the quiz does not always prove exactly the same. Table 3 shows the comparison between the result of the reading journal and quiz score in the Information System Department.

Table 3 The Comparison between the Result of Reading Journal and Quiz Score in Information System Department

Category Journal (Number of students)

Quiz (Number of students)

% of improvement or decrease

Good 22 13 ↓ 40,1 %

Fair 7 17 ↑ 42,9%

Poor 1 0 ↓ 100%

Table 3 shows that 13 students (43,3%) have performed well in the quiz, meaning that they have got score above or equals to 80. The rest of them, 17 students (56,7%), have achieved scores between 70 and 79, meaning that they perform fairly in the quiz. Interestingly, no student performs poorly in the quiz. Compared to the result of the reading journals, these numbers do not prove the assumption that those who write their reading journal well will also perform well in the quiz. There is a decrease as many as 40,1% in the quiz in the good category (9 from 22). Accordingly, an improvement of 42,9% is shown in the fair category.


Table 4 describes the result of the reading journal shown by the students of Information Technology as well as their quiz scores.

Table 4 The Result of Reading Journal and Quiz Scorein Information Technology Department

Students Number


Category


Total 22 8 0 Total 27 3 0

73.3% 26.7% 90% 10% 0%

Table 4 indicates that out of 30 students of Information Technology Department, 22 of them (73,3%) show good comprehension in their reading journal and the rest (8 students or 26,7%) have comprehended the assigned reading fairly. Surprisingly, no student has written the journal poorly. However, the quiz scores do not always prove the same. Here is the comparison between the result of the reading journal and the quiz score, as shown in Table 5.

Table 5 The Comparison between the Result of Reading Journal and Quiz Score

in Information Technology Department




Good 22 27 ↑ 22,7%

Fair 8 3 ↓ 62,5%

Poor 0 0 -

Table 5 shows that 27 students (90%) have performed well in the quiz, meaning that they have got score above or equals to 80. Compared to the result of the journal, this number shows an improvement of 22,7% 5 from 22). Consequently, those who perform fairly in the quiz decrease as many as 62,5% (5 from 8). Amazingly, no student found to perform poorly in the quiz as no one found to comprehend poorly in the journal.

Table 6 describes the result of the reading journal shown by the students of Japanese Department as well as their quiz scores.

Table 6 The Result of Reading Journal and Quiz Scorein Japanese Language and Culture Department

Students Number


Category


Total 12 9 12 Total 15 7 11

36.4% 27.2% 36.4% 45,5% 21,2% 33,3%

Table 6 indicates that out of 33 students of Japanese Department, 12 of them have written their journal quite well, 9 students have done it fairly, and 12 students have performed poorly. It means that 36,4% of them have

comprehended the text quite well, 27,2% have done it fairly, and 36,4% have performed poorly.

In this class, the result of the quiz does not always prove the same as that of the journal. Here is the comparison, as shown in Table 7.


in Japanese Department




Good 12 15 ↑ 25%

Fair 9 7 ↓ 28,6%

Poor 12 11 ↓ 8,3%

The table shows that 15 students (45,5%) have performed well in the quiz, meaning that they have got score above or equals to 80. Meanwhile, 7 students (21,2%) have achieved scores from 70 to 79, meaning that they perform fairly in the quiz, and there are 11 students (33,3%) have got scores below 70, which means that they perform poorly in the quiz. These numbers show an improvement in the good category and indicate a decrease in the fair and poor categories. Compared to the result of the journal in the good category, the result of the quiz improves as many as 25% (3 from 12). In the fair category, the quiz result decreases as many as 28,6% (2 from 9), while in the poor category, the quiz result decreases 8,3% (1 from 12).

Table 8 describes the result of the reading journal shown by the students of English Department as well as their quiz scores.

Table 8 The Result of Reading Journal and Quiz Scorein English Language and Culture Department

Students Number


Category


Total 5 5 1 Total 8 1 2

45,5% 45,5% 9% 72,7% 9% 18,2%

In the English Department, out of 11 students there are 5 students (45,5%) who have well comprehended the assigned reading, while 5 students (45,5%) have written their journal fairly and only 1 student (9%) has comprehended the reading poorly. However, the quiz shows different result. Here is the comparison:


in English Department




Good 4 8 ↑100%

Fair 5 1 ↓80%

Poor 1 2 ↑100%


The table reveals that there are 8 students (72,7%) who have performed well in the quiz, while there is only 1 student (9%) who shows his/her average performance, and two students (18,2%) have performed poorly in the quiz. These numbers suggest that there is an improvement in the good category (100%). Consequently, the number of those who have performed fairly in the quiz has decreased as many as 80% (4 from 5). Unfortunately, the number of those who shows their poor performance has doubled 100% (1 from 1).

From all departments, the number of students who has comprehended the assigned reading can be encapsulated in Table 10.

Table 10 The Summary of Journal Result of Four Departments

Number of Students

Department Good Fair Poor Total

Information System

22 7 1 30

Information Technology

22 8 0 30

Japanese 12 9 12 33

English 5 5 1 11

Total 61 29 14 104

Average 58,7% 27,9% 13,4% 100%

It is clearly seen from the table above that 58,7% students in average have achieved good category resulted from the journal they have written. In other words, more than half of the participants appear to comprehend the assigned reading well. Meanwhile, 27,9% of the participants are of fair category and only 13,4% of them do not comprehend the assigned reading well.

Furthermore, when the results shown in Table 10 are compared to the whole results of the quiz, Table 11 summarizes it.

Table 11 The Whole Comparison between the Result of Reading Journal and Quiz Score

in Four Departments

Quiz Score compared to Journal

Result

Information System

Information Technology

Japanese English Average

Good ↓ 40,1 % ↑ 22,7% ↑ 25% ↑100% ↑49%

Fair ↑ 42,9% ↓ 62,5% ↓ 28,6% ↓80% ↓57%

Poor ↓ 100% - ↓ 8,3% ↑100% ↓ 54,2%

Table 11 suggests that from four departments, three departments show improvement in the good category. It means that in these departments, the number of students who perform well in the quiz has increased as compared to the whole results of the journals. Correspondingly, the number of students who has performed fairly in these departments has decreased. However, there are two departments whose students are of poor category show improvement also. In other words, the number of students in this category has decreased, and one department has no student to perform poorly.

After the reading journal is assigned and the quiz is held, students are then asked to fill in a questionnaire which contains five questions. The analysis toward the answers of these questions is conducted apart from the analysis of the journal results and quiz scores. The answers are analyzed to find out whether or not the reading journal is useful for the students. Here are the answers found from four different departments. The result of the questionnaire found from students of Information System Department can be illustrated in Table 12.

Table 12 reveals that 90% of the students of Information System Department think that writing a reading journal is generally useful to support their learning process. 73% of them feel better prepared for the next class session after completing the task, and 77% can understand the whole concepts and terms in the assigned reading.

Even though there are 23% of the students who do not and doubt to understand all the concepts in the assigned reading, there are only 13% who prepare the questions to be asked in the next class session. Overall, 87% of the students think that the task of writing the reading journal helps them understand the whole idea of the text.

Table 12 The Result of the questionnaire in Information System Department


Table 13 The Result of the questionnaire in Information Technology Department

Table 14 The Result of the questionnaire in Japanese Department

Table 15 The Result of the questionnaire in English Department

Table 13 suggests that in Information Technology Department, 93% of the students think that writing a reading journal is generally useful to support their learning process. Then, after completing the task, 77% of them feel better prepared for the next class session, and 80% can understand the whole concepts and terms in the assigned reading. Although there are 20% of the students who do not and doubt to understand all the concepts in

the assigned reading, there are only 10% who prepare the questions to be asked in the next class session. All and all, 90% of the students think that the task of writing the reading journal helps them understand the whole idea of the assigned reading text.

Students of Japanese Department have answered the questions in the questionnaire and the result can be summarized in Table 14.

Table 14 illustrates that 76% of the students in Japanese Department think that writing a reading journal is generally useful to support their learning process. 75% of them feel better prepared for the next class session after completing the task. In spite of this, only 18% of the students can understand the whole concepts and terms in the assigned reading. Although there are 81% of the students who do not and doubt to understand all

the concepts in the assigned reading, there are only 9% who prepare the questions to be asked in the next class session. Interestingly, 85% of the students think that the task of writing the reading journal helps them understand the whole idea of the reading text.

Table 15 illustrates the result of the questionnaire found from students of English Department.


Table 15 indicates that in English Department, 100% of the students think that writing a reading journal is generally useful to support their learning process; 100% of them also feel better prepared for the next class session after completing the task; 80% can understand the whole concepts and terms in the assigned reading. On the contrary, there are only 18% of the students who understand all the concepts in the assigned reading, thus

82% do not and doubt to understand them. In spite of this, only 18% prepare the questions to be asked in the next class session. Surprisingly, 100% of the students think that the task of writing the reading journal helps them understand the whole idea of the assigned reading text.

From all participants of four different departments, the whole result of the questionnaire can be summarized in Table 16.

Table 16 The Result of the questionnaire in English Department

Table 16 shows that from four different departments, 88% of the students think that writing a reading journal is generally useful to support their learning process. Then, after completing the task, 77% of them feel better prepared for the next class session, and 53% can understand the whole concepts and terms in the assigned reading. Although there are 47% of the students who do not and doubt to understand all the concepts in the assigned reading, there are only 12% who prepare the questions to be asked in the next class session. In general, 88% of the students think that the task of writing the reading journal helps them understand the whole idea of the assigned reading text.

CONCLUSION

From four departments—Department of Information System, Department of Information Technology, Department of Japanese Language and Culture, and Department of English Language and Culture, it is found that 58,7% students in average have achieved good category resulted from the journal they have written. In other words, more than half of the participants appear to comprehend the assigned reading well. Meanwhile, 27,9% of the participants are of fair category and only 13,4% of them do not comprehend the assigned reading well.

It is also found that from four departments, three departments – Information Technology, Japanese and English – show improvement in the quiz scores, which is in the good category. In these departments, the number of students who perform well in the quiz has increased 49% in average as compared to the whole results of the reading journals in the same category. Correspondingly, in these departments the number of students who has shown fair performance has decreased 57% in average. This decrease is in fact due to the increasing in the good category.

However, there are two departments – Information System and Japanese – whose students are of poor category show improvement. In other words, the number of students who has performed poorly in the quiz has decreased as compared to the result of the journal in the same category. Additionally, one department – Information Technology – has no student to perform poorly.Thus, it can be concluded that the writing of reading journal plays a certain role to increase students’ understanding toward a text, even though it is not incredibly significant.

Furthermore, it is crucial to find that 88% of the students think that the task of writing the reading journal helps them understand the whole idea of the assigned reading text.Even though the effect of writing a reading journal is not very significant toward the improvement of students’ understanding toward a text, the questionnaire results suggest that most students agree with the usefulness of this activity. In other words, the task of writing a reading journal is very beneficial for them, especially in helping them understand the idea of a text.

REFERENCES

Bean, J. C. (1996). Engaging ideas:The professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass.

McIntosh, M.E. & Draper, R.J. (2001). Using learning logs in mathematics: Writing to learn. Mathematics Teacher, 94, 554–557.

McNamara, D. S. (2004). SERT: Self-explanation reading training. Discourse Processes, 38, 1–30. Routledge: Taylor and Francis group.

Murray, D. M. (1990). Writing to Learn. Texas: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston.


Rowan, K. E. (1990). Cognitive Correlates of Explanatory Writing Skill. Written Communication, 7(3), 316–341.

Scriven, M. & Paul, R. (1996). Defining Critical Thinking: A Draft Statement for the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking. Retrieved from http://www.criticalthinking.org/University/univlibrary/library.nclk

Vacca, R. T. & Vacca J. A. L. (1999). Content Area Reading. Literacy and Learning across the Curriculum. 6th Ed. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Wilson, N. (1989). Learning from confusion: Questions and change in reading logs. English Journal, 78(7), 62–69.

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READING JOURNAL AS A WAY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS ...research-dashboard.binus.ac.id/uploads/paper/document/publication... · READING JOURNAL AS A WAY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ COMPREHENSION